Category Archives: Gun Rights

Quote of the day—Ashley

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Nobody cares about your guns, if you hunt with them or (I hope) someday kill yourself with them.

…

Everyone else considers “ya’ll” crazy. We strive for the day that your ancient propaganda goes extinct. You, Mr. Redneck, are a dying breed of ignorance.

Ashley
November 5, 2013
Comment to Quote of the day—The Coquette
[Why are anti-gun people so violent? Oh, yeah. Now I remember.

Don’t ever forget. There are a sizeable number of anti-gun people that want you dead. They want your children dead. This is just one willing to announce it on my blog. They believe their desires are so mainstream they don’t even have to hide that wish and will tell it to your virtual face. And perhaps it is a mainstream view in San Luis Obispo California where Ashley is (IP address 66.215.49.99). Yet people look at me a little strange when I tell them I try to avoid California because those people hate “my kind”.

People will say “it’s just talk”. “You don’t have to worry about someone like that.”, they will reassure me. Probably not. But I’ll bet a lot of people didn’t think they would have to worry about a half nuts failed artist in prison writing a book about “My Struggle” either.

And you do you notice that in her world view I’m ignorant and crazy? I’m quoting U.S Supreme Court cases, Federal Appeals Court cases, and Gandhi. What does she reference to bolster her view? Nothing. And claims of me being ignorant by people who have spent more than two minutes of time talking to me are non-existent. I am therefore forced to conclude that Ashley has based her conclusion on ignored data. Which, if I’m not mistaken, makes her the ignorant or possibly crazy one.—Joe]

Right to carry violated under color of law

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It’s possible this could be a good case to take much further and set a good precedence:

The Second Amendment Foundation has filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in Arkansas on behalf of a legal resident alien, alleging that his right to keep and bear arms is being violated by a state law that prevents him from obtaining a concealed carry license.

The lawsuit, on behalf of Martin Pot (pronounced Poht), a citizen of the Netherlands, challenges the Arkansas statute because it “completely prohibits resident legal aliens from the concealed carry of guns, in public, for the purpose of self-defense.

SAF, “winning back firearms freedom one lawsuit at a time”.

Quote of the day—The Coquette

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Dude, you can wave court cases in my face all you want. At the end of the day, you’re still the wingnut who’s against centralized firearm registration and liability insurance because guns are like bibles.

The Coquette
November 3, 2013
Comment to On gun control
[There are so many lessons to be learned from this thread.

My response:

If suggesting the Second Amendment should be treated like the First Amendment means one should be called a “wingnut” then you will have to call a bunch of Federal Judges the same: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-…

And if you can’t be persuaded by the laws, the Federal Courts, or me gently pointing out the facts that makes you the dictionary definition of a bigot. I’m so glad we are a ruled by laws limited by the enumerated powers of the Constitution rather than by bigots. Otherwise we would still have Jim Crow type laws still being enforced, Jews being denied entry into schools, and concentration camps for the Japanese.

If being a defender of civil rights makes someone a “wingnut” in your book then I have a lot of “wingnut” company I am proud to be associated with. Are you just as proud of your association with the KKK?

Coquette response:

You’re not a defender of civil rights, Joe. You’re just an old white man in a fedora leaving creepy comments on my website.

It’s sad, really. You’re so myopic that you can’t even look past the barrel of your own gun and focus on the greater good.

My response:

All the evidence presented here is that the right to keep and bear arms is a specific enumerated civil right. All nine Supreme Court justices in the Heller decision agree with that. That your refuse to acknowledge that and insist that my defense of that right is somehow contrary to being a defender of civil rights takes a great deal of arrogance or is evidence of serious delusions.

We are done here. But thank you for playing along. This thread is
great material for my blog. You will be featured with Quote of the Day status on Tuesday.

Coquette response:

Looking forward to Tuesday, big guy. In the meantime, keep on using words that you don’t understand.

It should not be surprising that in addition to being prejudiced against gun owners that they have hostile opinions about people of certain ages and skin color.

Coquette is not the least bit concerned with the Bill of Rights or court rulings. All that matters is what they think is “the greater good” and looking down on people that disagree with their “superior” opinion. There is not even a glimmer of recognition that they might be wrong.

But that Coquette is concerned with “the greater good” tells us all we really need to know. The concept of individual rights is either alien or distasteful to them. The “greater good” is the mantra of the tyrant and the ever present excuse for genocide.

That someone can be that blatant in their disregard for the rule of law and individual rights is extremely scary. Even President Obama and VP Biden say they “respect” the Second Amendment and the courts rulings. They don’t of course, but they claim to. This person completely ignores the concept of rights. This is how governments end up murdering millions of their own people. People like this get into power and the rule of law disappears.

Again, the Second Amendment is to protect people from liberals.—Joe]

Well there’s your problem

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Via Sebastian we have this article whining about the lack of funding for the ATF. I only had to read as far as the second paragraph to see what the problem was:

The ATF, charged with keeping track of the nation’s 300 million guns…

Listen guys, the ATF has no more authority to keep track of the nation’s guns than it, or any other government agency, does the nation’s Bibles, Korans, and Torahs. And even if it were given the authority it would not be possible to keep track of those guns anymore than the DEA, with twice the funding, can keep track of the recreational drugs in this country.

And if you want to look at it another way try this: Our country is deeply in debt and getting worse. If the ATF isn’t doing the job you think it should be doing with the funding it is getting then let’s just get rid of it. Then put the money someplace where it would do some good. I would like to suggest paying off the debt.

CSGV and VISA

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CSGV now wants VISA to stop its affiliate program with the NRA:

Visa is helping to pay for NRA lobbyists who advocate against common-sense policies like background checks on gun buyers, and for dangerous legislation that would force K-12 schools, colleges, places of worship and businesses to allow the carrying of loaded guns on their premises.

I have a suggestion for CSGV. Why don’t you guys compare what a boycott by CSGV members would mean for VISA versus them dumping the NRA? It may be that this plan “can’t get the votes necessary” to succeed just like the gun control legislation they have been pushing.

The NRA has something like five million members. How many does the CSGV have?

Oh! That’s right. CSGV doesn’t have members so we can’t really do a direct comparison on that parameter. How about the number of people that show up for the annual meeting? The NRA has something on the order of 75,000. How many does the CSGV have?

Oh! That’s right. The CSGV doesn’t announce any annual meetings or make it known how many people show up at their meetings. But then a small apartment balcony with a couple lawn chairs is probably all they would need or could afford so announcing such a thing doesn’t make any more sense than demanding VISA drop the NRA.

Consensus with Biden on gun laws

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I’ve been reading (listening to it actually) Emily Gets Her Gun: …But Obama Wants to Take Yours. In it she tells of V.P. Biden telling Jim Baker, “regarding the lack of prosecutions on lying on Form 4473s, we simply don’t have the time or manpower to prosecute everybody who lies on a form, that checks a wrong box, that answers a question inaccurately.”

Only 44 out of 72,659 denials of the NICS check were prosecuted in 2010. If the firearm buyer told the truth on form 4473 when they tried to purchase the firearm the seller would have either been denied the sale on the spot and no NICS check would have been performed or they would have passed the NICS check. If they lied then they committed a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

I realize V.P. Biden has a problem with his head whistling when the wind blows so I’m not surprised he didn’t think of the following when he tried to get consensus on gun law changes. Gun owners, the NRA, and Biden should all be able get behind legislation to get rid of gun laws the Federal Government can’t and won’t enforce. If they aren’t going to prosecute people for improperly filling out a form then lets get rid of the form. Otherwise people might as well scribble “Screw you!” on it and call it good. I might be okay with that last approach too. It would be a common sense compromise, right?

Make it moot

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New York City’s has a “stop and frisk” policy where the police stop, question, and frisk people they deem suspicious. If drugs or weapons are found the evidence is used in criminal charges against them. In a typical year 500,000 to 600,000 stops are made. 86% to 90% of the time the person is innocent.

A Federal Judge told New York City to knock it off. But then she was removed from the case. Paul Barrett wants the city to use this opportunity “to come to a consensus on how the NYPD can continue its decades-long successful campaign to reduce violent crime, while at the same time respecting the Constitution’s ban on discriminatory government policies.“

As near as I can tell Barrett doesn’t have a problem with the searches as long as they don’t discriminate by race on who is being stopped for searches. I find this almost surreal. What would get it through his head that ignoring Fourth Amendment rights is a dangerous path to travel? Barrett’s mother escaped Europe as a little girl. Many of her relatives died in the camps during WWII. Maybe if consensus were for the police to refrain from frisking people unless their papers aren’t order. Have the police ask nicely and say, “Papers please.”

No. The “consensus” should be for the cops to cease stopping and searching innocent people. And another thing is the people should pass “constitutional carry” legislation and also end the war on drugs. After that what would be the point of frisking people? Suspicion of stolen property? Sure. Wounds from when they got shot attempting to harm an innocent person? Sure. But only after articulable probable cause that the person was a person of interest in a crime.

The number of innocent people stopped should be on the order of 10% or maybe 20%. When the innocent stop rate is 90% that is conclusive evidence the police need tall shiny boots and a German accent.

Quote of the day—Mailin Wong

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The best is to move to another more civilized country when people don’t get boners just by watching guns.

Mailin Wong
May 5, 2013
Comment to Staples starts selling 3-D printers
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday! Via email from Sean Y.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Emily Miller

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The only way a mandatory check would work would be if the government could track every one of the 300 million firearms in the United States. And then the criminals would ask permission before buying them.

Emily Miller
Emily Gets Her Gun: …But Obama Wants to Take Yours
[300 million guns? We have computers that could do that, right? They built a computer system that signed people up for Obamacare so they should be able to do that for gun owners, right?*

These would be necessary, but not sufficient, conditions for “universal background check to work”.

They would also have to shut off the smugglers. You should assume this would work about as well as the War on Drugs has worked.

They would also have to prevent all the 3-D printers from making new guns. You should assume this would work about as well as the peeing into the wind.—Joe]

*In fact the Canadian gun registry (disbanded after costing 2 billion rather than 2 million) was built by the same people that wrote the Obamacare website.

Guns stop mass shooters

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A good case could be made that the more people that have guns the less likely mass shootings are to occur. It a little tough to do the experiment because how do you know of a mass shooting was stopped because more people have guns?

But there is evidence even if we can’t do a fully controlled experiment like we would like. There are a number of cases listed here (H/T to John Lott) where the bad guy left a note or had made a modest start toward challenging previous mass shooting body counts when they were stopped by someone with a CCW and a gun.

There is also evidence presented in John Lott’s book, More Guns, Less Crime as well. In the first edition (not sure about later revisions) the number of mass shootings prior to allowing people to exercise their right to keep and bear arms in public (no CCW) there were a modest number of mass shootings, then after passage of right to carry laws the mass shootings in that political jurisdiction went to zero. This was prior to the Gabby Giffords shooting which, of course, was in the gun friendly state of Arizona. But given that one exception when mass shooting occurs you can make a very safe bet that it happened in a “Gun Free Zone”.

It’s time to stop the mass shootings. We must stop government from infringing on our rights.

Comment backup

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I’m backing up this comment here in case “Reasoned Discourse” breaks out over there.

Gun ownership is a specific enumerated right. Driving a car is a privilege.

Gun ownership is much closer compared to freedom of religion. We don’t, and can’t legally, require all the Jews, Catholics, and Muslims to register, pass tests, and register all their religious books. And so it is with the right to keep and bear arms.

Quote of the day—Roberta X

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Lining up armed men in uniform to say “Verboten!” to members of the public wanting to pay their respects at a revered monument (one made of hard, hard rock and solidly anchored) is utterly necessary to the continued functioning of our great republic.

Okay, then.  But they’re gonna need taller, shiner boots.

Roberta X
October 6, 2013
Fed.Gov Has Shut Down The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall?
[I think I will start stealing that last line even though it’s not the shiny boots that make the difference. It’s the guns that back them up.

What they don’t seem to understand is that we have guns too. Not only guns but numbers. Numbers of people and numbers of guns that outnumber their guns and numbers. Please stop pushing because demonstrating the guns or the numbers will be very unpleasant for all involved.—Joe]

The only purpose

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With as many crazy people as there are it’s surprising the world isn’t more messed up than it actually is.

And of course with a psychotic belief like that they have no reservations whatsoever about destroying your guns and you.

I tweeted back the following:

But trying to reason with the mentally ill is hopeless. I know, I’ve tried it before.

The government lies and people die

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FACT: Nothing in #Obamacare forces people out of their health plans. No change is required unless insurance companies change existing plans.

— Valerie Jarrett* (@vj44) October 29, 2013

I asked a friend who is in the health insurance business if the above was true. I knew the answer but thought maybe there was some narrow definition of the word “is” or maybe “in” that would make it something other than a false statement.

The response was a laugh and, “No. That’s what I have been doing for the last several weeks. We have been preparing notification letters for individuals telling them their insurance plans are no longer available. Plans they were perfectly happy with and could afford cannot be offered anymore because of ACA.”

I was a bit surprised by the laugh and the almost cheerful mood. They explained, “It’s what we deal with everyday. They constantly say things that are not true and it has gotten to the point where we joke and laugh about it.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised, it’s obvious in hindsight, but they also told me, “We can’t say anything about it though. If we do we will be audited and harassed by the regulators. It’s just not worth it. You don’t say anything bad about the regulators.”

They also told me, “It’s going to be sad. Due to “health care reform” a lot of people that used to have insurance will no longer be covered.

I could say a lot, lot more…if it weren’t for the fear of the government taking revenge upon someone for exposing their lies.

A single person losing their health insurance is a tragedy. 16 million is a statistic. https://t.co/0hgOrYnSEZ

— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) October 29, 2013

If you don’t recognize the form of the quote above; it’s from Stalin who probably actually said, “’When one man dies it is a tragedy, when thousands die it’s statistics’”.

It’s appropriate to bring Stalin into the discussion for more than just this one reason. Read this book: How Do You Kill 11 Million People?: Why the Truth Matters More Than You Think. It’s a very quick read. There is one thing that government have proved, again and again, that they are very, very good at. It’s killing people. Particularly their own people. One of the crucial links in accomplishing this is lying to their victims and to those who carry out the orders to arrest, transport, and jail them. The lie could be a black as “Arbeit macht frei” or telling the friends and relatives of those executed in the basements of the local police station in the USSR that the ‘counter-revolutionaries and traitors’ had been sent to labor and reeducation camps. It could be the lie that the crowded rail cars were carrying everyone to a place where they would have good homes, schools, and jobs. Or it could be what many would consider a white lie of a campaign promise to provide universal health care. Never mind the “health care panels” administrating the “care” would decide who were treated and who were euthanized.

Obamacare is now being recognized for the disaster so many people knew it would be. What comes next is that the failure will and is being blamed on political obstructionists. This is a lie. The system, as I explained in my previous post, cannot work because of the principles involved. But some are calling for Republicans and the Tea Party to be tried for treason.

What happens next? There is a good chance that the democrats will lose seats in the next election because of it. But that isn’t the only possible outcome. Stalin and the Khmer Rouge regimes handled the failures and criticism of their policies in a different manner without giving up control. And many in the U.S. media approved with rationalizations such as (H/T to Alan Gura):

The new government of Cambodia may have to resort to strong measures against a few to gain democratic socialism for all Cambodians. And we support the United Front in the pursuit of its presently stated goals.

The current administration has consistently lied about gun control, operation Fast and Furious, the massive spying, stopping the wars, closing Guantanamo Bay, Benghazi, jobs creation, and health care reform. But the really scary stuff is what they have told the truth about. They said they would be willing to use drones to kill U.S. citizens on American soil.

Lying is what comes naturally to them. They tell lies the people want to believe. But once you have told enough lies your brain changes and you have trouble telling or even knowing the truth.

History has some very brutal examples of what happens when government policy is to lie. We must not let that happen here.

* Valerie Jarrett (@vj44) is an official Whitehouse twitter account.

Random thought of the day

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I find it odd that many of the people who believe they are wise enough to know the world would be a better place if the second article in the Bill of Rights were eliminated choose the people they wish to associate with according to what they believe is a proxy for penis size.

Quote of the day—Jeff Fyke

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@linoge_wotc @rickygervais Couldn’t agree more. @NRA members need guns to prove their men. #PenisEnvy #GunControl

Jeff Fyke
Tweeted on May 6, 2013

[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday! Via still another Tweet from Linoge.—Joe]

Gun control humor (almost)

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I like the following but it’s a little “too close to home” to actually get a laugh out of me.

TrustTheGovernment

Undocumented

Via email from Pat A.

Quote of the day—Chuck Michel

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The authors are candidly blunt about fatal gun deaths being their measurement criteria. Using this criterion amuses working criminologists who, knowing criminals on a deeply personal level, tend instead to use violent crime as the standard of measure. They do so especially when discussing gun control, because their research shows that guns are used to deter criminal activity (usually without a gun death), upwards of six times more often than to commit crimes (with or without a gun death). A woman pointing her pink-gripped revolver at a rapist with his clothesline noose will instantly prevent a fatal crime of violence that did not involve a gun.

Chuck Michel
October 21, 2013
New Math, Old Buncombe
[I cannot recall an anti-gun person ever using violent crime rates as a measurement of the (in)effectiveness of gun control. And frequently they will be so bold as to quote the denial of firearm sales as proof of effectiveness. It’s hard to get any more transparent about their true motives as when they brag about the millions of people that have been denied their right to keep and bear arms.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Timothy Sandefur

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The Fourth Circuit has shown that it isn’t interested in proof. This runs a dangerous risk of changing the rational basis test into a “Get out of the Constitution free” card.

Timothy Sandefur
October 23, 2013
Fourth Circuit: don’t bother us with the facts
[Not only do the courts not want to be bothered with the facts they will ignore facts presented and even refuse to rule on something.

A long time ago when I was much younger and even more naïve than I am now I believed the courts could and would straighten out a lot of the constitution issues with all the repressive gun laws.

I have reluctantly concluded that my friend Eric E. was correct when he told me over 10 years ago in regards to class action suit that I was involuntarily a part of and thought was totally wrong (paraphrasing), “Going to court is just rolling the dice. If you reject the settlement then you are giving up money that you should have collected some other time when you should have won but lost because the dice came up snake-eyes.” I cashed a check for something like $18,000.

As an engineer I am accustomed to the physical world being rational and predictable. The people world is, at best, a very thin veneer of rationality over seemingly random emotions. The result is a great deal of frustration with most people.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble

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How do you protect soft targets? That’s really the challenge. You can’t have armed police forces everywhere.

…

Societies have to think about how they’re going to approach the problem. One is to say we want an armed citizenry; you can see the reason for that. Another is to say the enclaves are so secure that in order to get into the soft target you’re going to have to pass through extraordinary security.

Ronald Noble
Interpol Secretary General
October 21, 2013
Exclusive: After Westgate, Interpol Chief Ponders ‘Armed Citizenry’
[Other people have things to say as well:

As Tam said, “I feel all through the looking glass, here.”—Joe]